Tag Archives: catana 471

Ocean Days and Starry Nights: Passage NZ to New Cal

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After patiently waiting (and occasionally refreshing weather models like it’s a full-time job), we are finally ready to start our passage from New Zealand to New Caledonia.

A good weather window has opened, and it’s time to go make use of it—heading out for 6–7 days of beautiful ocean sailing, starry nights, and the kind of quiet horizon that reminds you why you came to sea in the first place.

We’ve paused our scheduled blog posts for the duration of the passage.

Instead, Matt will be doing some “live blogging” along the way—real-time updates from the motion, the miles, and whatever the ocean decides to serve up.

Scheduled posts will resume on 16 June 2026, once we’re back in range of reliable internet (and slightly more stable footing).

In the meantime, you can follow our journey by heading to our website homepage, clicking “Current Location”, and then following the PredictWind link to track our progress across the blue.

Thank you for the continued support, messages, and encouragement—it means a lot to have you following along with our adventures aboard Sugar Shack.

Fair winds, and see you on the other side of the ocean.

NZ Bound #3: 760 till the bouncing ceases

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Champagne sailing still elusive, but we do have Mr Toads wild and Willy ride.

Winds, Waves and Water We got em all, or is that beer bait and ammo?

The clouds summoned the winds for a crazy party last night, still glad we only had scraps of sails showing. They must have one heck of a party up there, hooting and hollering some 35 knots of wind making a general nuisance of them selves. The saving grace was they must have been a part of my generation and no longer needed to whooop it up till day break and shut the party down about midnight and left the younger generation to carry on. The younger generation had nothing compared to the old timers they could only muster mid 20s level excitement. Must have been too busy staring at a device of some sorts.

All in all, a bouncy windy night but this morning is looking promising

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Sun rise miles from no where.

All well onboard after the wind party we all got some pretty good sleep. Hopeful we will find at least some Prosecco sailing today, raising a little more sail this morning since the winds are for the first time under 20 kts.

NZ Bound #3: 896 nm left to find Champgne

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Well 24 hrs down, plenty to go. The search for champagne sailing continues. Stomping grapes more adequately describes the seas out here. We did have a few hours of sparkling wine, not even Prosecco, where the wind and waves agreed on which direction to bounce us around. We all got some good solid rest during those precious hours before returning to the salt mine.

We might be starting a new business. Deep Water Salt, made from only happy salt. Happy salt jumps out of the ocean, sun dried and delivered fresh to your table. Since Deep Water Salt is happy, its also good for all your friends with high blood pressure.

New batch of happy salt jumping onboard.

Stop by in NZ and you can claim your very own.

Ps. Thats a puny small splash, that’s all I could get a picture of without getting drenched

All well onboard, knocked out 186 miles direct to NZ, the boat traveled 197 miles so even if it is bouncy we are doing well with barely 1/3 of our available sails. We have had 2 reefs in both sails since we started.